On Hashish

A quick glance at this album cover might make the long-time Pitchfork reader\n\
yearn for the skewed-but-effective prose of ...

A quick glance at this album cover might make the long-time Pitchfork reader
yearn for the skewed-but-effective prose of Mr. James Wisdom, but the title
does not, in fact, refer to the mindset of its construction. As detailed on the
inside cover of the album, On Hashish is an homage to German cultural
theorist Walter Benjamin, who worked on a book bearing the same title, which
remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1940. Shalabi's On Hashish
would probably make lousy drug music for anyone but the most daring, anyway,
because this album is packed with dense, unsettling passages of sound likely to
trigger a bad freakout in even the most seasoned psychedelic traveler. It's been
creeping me out, even though I've been sober as a judge every time I've
heard it.

Shalabi's method for this record was to record instrumental passages by some of
his favorite Montreal musicians (including bassist Alexandre St. Onge from the
Shalabi Effect, and Thierry Amar and Norslola Johnson from Godspeed You Black
Emperor!) and then completely rearrange the recordings into an abstract soundfield
that owes something to musique concrète. As would be expected given the circumstances
surrounding its creation, On Hashish is a more difficult listen than the
more band-oriented affairs of the Shalabi Effect, and winds up being closer in
spirit to last year's satisfying collaboration Kristian, Shalabi, St. Onge.

The centerpiece of On Hashish is the 26-minute opener "Outside Chance
(Dreamfangs)." Whether or not the title was meant as a pun, it seems plausible
that chance indeed played a role in the track's composition. The beginning section
consists of cymbal splashes that sound like a glass endlessly shattering in extreme
slow motion, random piano tinkles, some distant vocalizations, and periodic bows
from the double-bass of St. Onge. A couple minutes of indeterminate percussion
form a bridge to the next section, a thick cluster of flute tones organized to
sound like otherworldly sobs. Stabs of noise, probably emanating from instruments
being manipulated in non-traditional ways, punctuate this moving passage. From
there, the piece incorporates assorted field recordings and coasts out on a deep,
rumbling drone and some analog glitches. An air of ceremony pervades the effective
"Outside Chance (Dreamfangs)," giving it the quality of mourning music from another
dimension.

"Soot" begins with a collective free-jazzy blast of reeds and horns, and then
modulates into a disturbing bit of drone music anchored around a constantly
wavering and badly distorted sine wave tone. The electronics continue to do battle
with the swirl of the horns as other noises fold in, lending a Cageian air of
chaos. An abrupt cut leads to "The Wherewithal," a nearly eight-minute piece
cooped mostly of hiss, chirps, static and subsonic rumbles, which manages to be
comforting despite its noisy surface, almost like a sleep-inducing wall of pink
noise.

While passages of "Outside Chance (Dreamfangs)" are undeniably powerful, "The
Wherewithal" has a truly odd tranquility, and "Soot" is impressively abrasive,
something keeps me from labeling On Hashish as a great album. Part of my
problem is that it's difficult to imagine the mood that would compel me to pull
the record from the shelf-- but there's something else missing. These long,
abstract pieces are definitely meant to be heard in a single sitting, but the
album as a whole never quite congeals. The pacing seems slightly off, with some
stretches that degenerate into tedium, and, "Soot" aside, there isn't a lot of
dynamic range. Still, there are more than enough riveting passages here to demand
attention from Shalabi admirers, and one has to marvel at the consistently high
level of the man's prolific output.